A New Chapter
by Doctor Strangeblog
Summary: With the Doctor's change of face comes a new chapter in the story of the Timelord and the Impossible Girl. A quick trip to see spacey fireworks leads the pair into a new and troublesome adventure that spirals out of control and into Clara's personal life at home. Caution: Explosions, eyebrows, and Danny Pink.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

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><p>"Isn't it incredible?"<p>

The words were spoken softly, almost inaudibly. The Doctor stood in the threshold of the TARDIS, slightly leaning on the open door with his hands in his pockets. The ship spun very slowly and gracefully, as if it were dancing. Two-thousand years of traveling, but seeing the vast beauty of the universe would never get old to him.

He only wished he could say the same for his human companion.

"Oh, you're not serious, are you?" The Doctor sighed heavily. He shot a sharp glare to the side at Clara.

"Hm? Sorry, what?"

"We're watching two gas clouds practically waltzing with each other in outer space and you're bloody texting?" he asked incredulously.

Clara slyly slid her mobile into her jacket pocket. "Well, we're in a time machine. We can just pop back five minutes and watch it again, can't we?" she teased, smirking. She knew that saying like that would set him off.

"It does not work like that and you know it," the Doctor growled.

"Watching now."

The Doctor crossed his arms with a sigh. _Humans..._

After a few, short, precious moments of silence...*boo-bleep*

Clara quickly whipped her phone back out.

"Right, that's it," the Doctor snapped. In a flash, he snatched the device from her hands and threw it over his shoulder. It landed with a clang somewhere in the depths of the TARDIS.

"Hey!"

"I hope you have that insured," the Doctor leaned forward and slammed the TARDIS doors shut.

"What the hell was that?"

"Have you really gotten that used to traveling with me? That you think these trips are just a bus tour of Brighton or something?" He spun on his heel, coat fanning out just enough to let some red flare out, and marched towards the console.

"I...no, of course not!" Clara quickly followed him, but made sure to keep her distance and stood on the opposite side of the console.

"Are you bored? Shall I take you back home?"

"Oh, will you stop being so dramatic?" Clara groaned and leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the console, slightly exasperated. "Look, sorry, okay? I just...it's this whole thing with Danny..."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

Clara lifted her head. A bit of hair fell in front of her eyes. "He's...a friend. I'm attempting to make contact with my own kind back home, you know."

"A friend?"

"Yes," she said quickly, blowing a bit of hair out of her face now.

"A date friend?"

"...Potentially."

The Doctor stared, waiting.

"I don't know. He's...different," Clara continued. "Really...different. Odd, even. But he's nice. And...I don't know. It's all probably nothing. Probably best that you smashed my phone."

"Yeah, sorry about that."

"No, you're not."

"I'm really not."

The Doctor flipped a switch on the console. The switch didn't actually do anything, but it gave him something to concentrate on as the awkward silence enveloped them both. Finally, he cleared his throat. "Ahm...look, if you need to talk-"

"Nope," Clara said as nonchalantly as possible. "Nothing to talk about. Where are we going next?"

Silent relief filled the Timelord. He wouldn't have known what to say even if she had wanted to talk. His running history of relationships was not in good standing. "Well, what would you like to see?"

"Anywhere," she shrugged. "You're the driver."

The Doctor picked up on the subtle look of distance in her big, brown eyes. "Alright then," he quickly typed something in on the computer. "How about...something awesome?"

A small smile tugged at the edge of her lips, which quickly grew into a full sized grin. "Something awesome would be great."

With one hand in his pocket, the Doctor reached up and pulled on the lever with grace. "Something awesome."

* * *

><p>"After you," the Doctor gestured Clara to exit the TARDIS first.<p>

She was about to open the door when all of a sudden, an enormous BOOM sounded. She turned to him with wide eyes. "What was that?"

He nodded. "Trust me," he said, his face still solemn.

Slowly, Clara reached out and pulled the squeaky door open and looked up just in time to see something rather spectacular. An explosion of color in the sky. Quite like fireworks, but it was much bigger, brighter, and less controlled than fireworks. "What is that!" she asked, full of curiosity.

The Doctor followed her out and closed the door behind them. He glanced around and congratulated himself on his great parking job. He had landed the TARDIS right on the top of a hill, where a great crowd of people were camped out on blankets, hover chairs, or perched on the roofs of their own small space craft. At the far end of the hill was a vast lake, which appeared to be glowing ever so slightly. Another explosion of light and color erupted in the starry night sky above and people all around clapped and cheered.

"You know how in America, they celebrate their independence with fireworks?"

"Yeah...are these spacey fireworks?" Clara asked excitedly, her eyes not leaving the sky.

"Of sorts. Rather than fireworks, this planet launches meteorites loaded with explosives similar to fireworks at each other. When they collide, it's quite a show."

Sure enough, Clara was watching more closely now, she could see two tails of light as they came together in the sky and exploded.

"That's awesome."

"You can't say that I don't deliver."

Now Clara could see why the lake had a bit of a glow to it. As the remains of the meteorites fell to the planet, they were falling into the lake, still glowing as they slowly sank to the bottom. It was a show above and below. She smiled as they watched for a moment. It had taken a while for her to get used to this new Doctor. The whole thing after Trenzalore had been so sudden and shocking. At times she was still trying to process the fact that her floppy haired Doctor was the same silver haired one that stood before her. She was getting used to him, yes. '_We all change, when you think about it...We are all different people all through our lives and that's okay, that's good you've got to keep moving..so long as you remember all the people that you used to be_.'

She would never forget those words for the rest of her life. Of course, she was angry when he regenerated. She had just lost her best friend. And yet, she gained another. How many times had she changed throughout her life? She became an entirely different woman after her mum died. Her friends even said so. But her friends still loved her, despite her change. And she would love the Doctor. It was a new chapter, her and this Timelord.

"So, where are we?" Clara asked, looking up at her friend.

"Vexholi. It's actually quite similar to Earth, really. Oh, hang on a minute..." The Doctor quickly walked back into the TARDIS, returning a few moments later with two folding lawn chairs. "Here we go," he said, plopping them down.

"Lawn chairs. Probably the last thing I ever expected to see you pull from that ship."

"Are you kidding me? Two-thousand years of time and space, I have everything you could ever imagine in there." He folded his long fingers together and he settled comfortably into his seat and resumed watching the sky. "The Vexholians had been in a state of war with the planet that colonized them for several generations. Sort of a similar story of England and America. Basically, Belarous, the other planet, eventually decided that they were not going to win the war. So if they couldn't win the planet, they would destroy it."

"That's a bit dramatic."

"They hurled a giant asteroid here"

"Scratch that. Very dramatic."

"But the Vexholians threw a giant comet at the asteroid to destroy it, which gave both worlds a spectacular light show. Which is why they do this now."

"Aw. So what happened to the other planet then?"

"Oh, they're allies now. Have been for decades now." The Doctor extended a finger and pointed up at the giant moon in the sky. "See the moon there? It's got an interplanetary station on there. Belarous has its own sort of embassy up there with them. That's where they launch the whole light show from."

"Very cool," Clara remarked.

The Doctor leaned back and the two gazed upwardly, enjoying the show for quite some time. At one point, a man with slightly purple skin came around offering snacks. While the Doctor was speaking to him, Clara's eyes wandered over to the huge moon that hung above them, just taking in the fact that it was so big compared to Earth's moon. It seemed to be quite a bit closer to the planet as well. While she was looking though, she saw something strange.

"Um...Doctor?"

The Doctor ignored her as he kept speaking to the man, trying to politely tell him to 'bugger off'. Clara kept her eye on the moon. There was a small, tiny glow coming from it, almost like a flickering candle. But bigger. "Doctor. Look."

"What?" he huffed, turning to her. He saw her eyes fixed on the moon and followed just in time to see a massive explosion coming from the surface. A collective gasp floated through the crowd. "Oh, that's not supposed to happen." He jumped from the lawn chair and began fishing in his pocket for the TARDIS key. Clara followed wordlessly, not even needing to ask where they were going.

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><p><strong>A/N/**

Hello hello! I haven't written a fanfic for about 4 years now, so go easy on me. Hope you all enjoy it. Hell, I even opened up a whole new name to put this under because I just wanted to start fresh. I'm so excited for Capaldi's take on the Doctor and there just isn't enough fanfic to get me through in between episodes. So...when you want something *rolls up sleeves* do it yourself. So this is me doing it myself. Already started on Chapter Two...I'll try to get that up as soon as I can. I'll warn you all that I do work an awful lot and the internet at my house is shoddy at best, so I'll get this up as quick as I can. Things may change here and there as episodes roll out, as I'm trying to keep these as true to the characters as possible. And yes, Danny Pink will make a show here in a few chapters time...so stay tuned! Cheers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

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><p>As soon as the Doctor flung the TARDIS doors open, smoke began to pour in. "Oh, I didn't think about that," the Doctor coughed. He whipped a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Clara, who was also having difficulty breathing. The hall that they stepped into was blackened by smoke, the only light was red emergency lights that gave the corridor a very eerie glow. In the distance, people were shouting over the sound of a blaring siren.<p>

"What are we going to do?" Clara said in a muffled voice through the handkerchief.

"Not a clue! Help, I suppose." The Doctor raised his sonic screwdriver towards the ceiling, the green tip contrasting with the smoky red. A moment later, the sirens silenced. "Ah, that's better."

"I can't hardly see where we are going," Clara hacked as they blindly walked down the corridor.

"Yeah, still working on that," replied the Doctor as he fiddled with the sonic screwdriver. He adjusted the setting and pointed it up to a vent in the ceiling. As it went off, the smoke slowly began to recede into the vent. "There, that should help a little-" the Doctor stopped abruptly with a grunt and suddenly collapsed to the ground.

"Doctor!"

"Stay where you are!" shouted a deep voice from behind. There were three soldiers with long rifles behind them, one with his weapon trained at Clara's forehead, another with the butt of the gun facing outward where he had just struck the Doctor. "Who are you two?"

"We were here to _help_!" Clara snapped, raising her hands, eyes crossed slightly as she stared down the tip of the rifle.

"Right, you two look more like the ones who sabotaged this place to me," one of the soldiers said thickly.

"What's going on down here?" Through the clearing smoke, another figure briskly approached. A woman dressed in a similar uniform as the soldiers, but slightly more decorated.

"Ma'am, we found these two down here. They aren't personnel, my guess is they're the ones who brought the bomb here."

The woman sighed. "We still aren't even sure if it _was _bomb. Put that gun down already, she's not going to hurt you, obviously."

Clara breathed a small sigh of relief as the rifle was lowered. "You certainly hit the wrong one of the two of us, seeing as I'm the one who takes taekwondo…" she muttered, glancing down at the Doctor, who was still unconscious.

"Take them to the brig, we'll deal with them after we get the damage under control."

One of the soldiers roughly grabbed Clara's arm and began to lead her away. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder and saw the other two hoisting the Doctor up, his arms draped over their shoulders and his feet dragging. He groaned a little as his head fell forward.

"Look, we're here to help, I swear!" Clara pleaded with the woman, who was now marching ahead of them. "And you're going to have one very pissed off Timelord when he wakes up!"

The woman stopped dead in her tracks and whipped around. "What did you say?"

"_Pissed off Timelord!"_

"By the stars…" the woman whispered as blood drained from her face. "Is...is that the Doctor?"

"You know him?"

"But..but he can't be…" The woman's eyes fell somewhere behind Clara, far down the hall. Clara turned and saw that as more of the smoke cleared, the TARDIS was becoming more visible. "Oh dear...that _is _him, isn't it?"

"Yee-up."

"Let her go," the woman ordered to the soldier holding Clara. "My apologies...we-...I'm Colonel Artis, the head of the Voxholian side of this facility. I had no idea-...is that really the Doctor?"

"He's regenerated," Clara explained, looking back at him.

"I see that. I always knew Timelords could do that but I've never seen it for myself. Please, come with me."

They continued down the corridor and turned down another, where several more personnel were running back and forth with extinguishers and injured. "So what happened here?" Clara asked. Now that the smoke was gone, she could get a better look of the place. It was very plain and basic. A few windows in this hall showed the lunar landscape outside, along with a glow from the the Voxholi planet surface.

"Bomb," said the soldier next to Clara.

"We _think," _Artis snapped back, "but it may have been a malfunction with the light show."

"Oh, come on, it had to have been-"

"That's enough, Hedrick! We can't go pointing fingers just yet."

The soldier, Hedrick, heaved a sigh as they continued on. Behind them, there was a loud groan. Clara turned Doctor slowly raising his head as the soldiers still held him up. She ran back to him and lightly touched the side of his face as he came round. "Doctor, can you hear me?"

"Shut up...oh, my head…"

"Doctor?"

He blearily opened his eyes. "What's happening…?" The soldiers carefully released his arms as he gained his footing.

Not wanting to cause more fuss, Clara responded with, "Um, an accident." She could see the soldier who had hit him drop his shoulders in relief.

He blinked a couple of times and saw who was standing behind Clara. "Colonel Artis, lovely to see you again."

"Doctor," Atris greeted. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, you know me. I'm drawn to beautiful light shows and massive explosions," he shrugged, rubbing the back of his head. "Is everyone here alright?"

"We don't know casualties yet, but we have several unaccounted for." She looked back to the three soldiers. "You three, back to damage control."

Hedrick cast a look to the two strangers. "What about these two, ma'am?"

"They're friends," Atris told him sternly, "and will be continued to be treated as such. Now move, that's an order." She turned back to Clara and the Doctor. "My office is just up here," she said as they began walking again. "I'll fill you in there and see what you can do to help us, perhaps. The circumstances here have been odd enough lately...and now this. You couldn't have shown up at a better time."

The Doctor was about to respond with a quip when he stumbled into Clara's side. She reached out an arm to steady him. "You okay?" she asked.

"I've been hit over the head, do you think I'm okay?" he growled. "Yes, yes...let's keep moving, I'll be fine."

Eventually they made it into the office of Colonel Artis. It was large but oddly very empty, as if it were rarely used. Plaques and medals were scattered along the side wall, along with a giant painting of what Clara guessed to be Voxholi. Artis sat herself at her desk, while Clara helped the Doctor into a chair on the opposite side. "So...what's happening here, Colonel?" the Doctor asked.

Artis sighed and placed her hands on the glass desk in a professional manner. "Tensions here have been high with the Belarans."

"Have they now?" the Doctor inquired, sitting up a bit more.

"I'm trying to keep the other soldiers and personnel cool about it...otherwise they'll all be wanting to start another war," Artis said wearily. "However, I am quite certain that the explosion that happened here today _was _a bomb and that the Belarans are in fact to blame."

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><p><strong>A/N/**

I tried to hold off on the action for a bit longer but I couldn't help myself. More to come soon! What sticky plot have the Doctor and Clara found themselves in this time, eh?


End file.
